Tag Archives: Happiness

This is a story about positivity. No matter, how low you may feel the choice to be positive remains with you and only you. We may think that others make us feel bad but in reality, it’s us who chooses to feel bad.

There was a man, who saw and lived life only through his choices. His name was Almond. He was the kind of a guy everyone loved to hate. He remained cool and calm, happy and in good mood at all times. Whenever someone asked anything, his rely was always filled with positive thoughts and suggestions. When someone asked him about how he is feeling today, do you know what his reply would be. He would say, “If I were any better, I would be twins!”

Such happy character Almond was.

Almond was unique in many ways but the most important character, his positivity made others feel positive as well. Almond worked in the Sales Department as a Sales Manager. All the companies he worked in and left people would leave their respective jobs to follow him around from company to company. The only reason people followed Almond was his attitude, his attitude towards life which got reflected in his work as well. He was a natural motivator. When someone in his team had an off (bad) day, Almond rushed to make him see the brighter picture, the positive side of the negative event. This in itself is very difficult but when you learn the effect of positive choices, you get transform into the ball of positivity, which when rolled, spreads positivity across all directions.

One day one of Almond’s new employee, Gerard, approached him in his cabin while he was reading a book. “I don’t get it!” Gerard said in the frustrating voice. He continued, “No one can be positive forever. It is not natural. I have tried and tried but at some point I get crazily upset. How do you do it? How can you be positive at all times? Almond smiles at Gerard and said, “Positivity is not to be forced. It is a natural way of expressing one’s desire to be on top of any situation”. Unable to comprehend what Almond said, Gerard kept looking at his face thinking about the crazy words he is speaking.

Almond after a pause said, “Every morning, when I wake up. I open my eyes and say to myself, Almond; you have two choices today to spend your day. Do you want to be in a good and happy mood today or would you like to b e in a sad and unhappy state for rest of the day. At that point I choose the first option, to be happy and cheerful and exhilarated state”.

Almond continued, “When I feel the situation is bad and something terrible has happened, my inner self asks me again, Almond would you like to be a victim of the situation or would you like to learn from it. I choose to learn from the situation”

Pausing for a moment, with a smile on his face, Almond said, “If someone comes complaining to me, my inner self again gives me two choices, would you like to accept the individual’s complain and would you like to point out the positive side of it. I choose the latter”.

But Gerard was in such a grumpy and frustrated mood that he exclaimed in anger, “Yeah, right, it’s all good to say and listen but it’s not that easy as it sounds”.

Almond continued, “Gerard, life is a choice”. Differentiating between Inbox and Spam of an email, Almond said, “When a person is able to scrap all the noise from the sound, every situation transforms into choice. It is you who has to choose how to react in any given situation. Don’t think about results, think about the situation. It’s you who choose how people are going to affect your mood and feelings. It’s you who chooses to be in the good or bad mood. At the end, it is your and only your choice that decide your state of mind, it is your choice how you choose to live your life.

Gerard kept mum and left the office for that day and never returned back to office. Gerard opened his own small firm and started his new venture. For a long time Almond and Gerard did not meet. But Gerard often thought about Almond when he made choices about life instead of becoming a victim and reacting to it.

After a long period of time, Gerard heard from somewhere that Almond did an unthinkable, that he should have never done. Almond by that time became the Store Manager of a very good food chain. Almond forgot to secure the back door of the restaurant and was held on gun point by robbers.

Robbers forced him to reveal the security combination of the safe in which the whole month’s money was safely kept. Shaking with nervousness, the combination slipped from his mind and he was shot on the spot by the robbers who panicked before fleeing the scene. Fortunately, paramedics reached at the scene very quickly and he was rushed to the trauma centre. Almond was operated upon for a full complete day. His surgery went for 22 hours. Almond was shifted in the ICU and was discharged from the hospital after few weeks while the fragments of the bullets still remained in his body.

A year after the incident, Gerard found where Almond was and went to meet him to enquire about his health. Gerard upon meeting Almond asked, “How are you Almond” to which Almond replied, “If I were any better, I would be twins”.

Gerard mustered some courage to ask Almond about how he felt and what had gone through his mind as that incident happened.

Almond said, “At first, I was thinking, I should have secured the back door. Shouldn’t have left it open. Then when I was shot and I was lying down on the floor, my inner self cried out to me and asked me that Almond you still have two choices as usual. Would you choose to live or would you choose to die. As always, I chose to live”.

Gerard anxiously asked, “Almond were you not scared at all? Were you unconscious?”

Almond replied back saying, “The paramedics were brilliant. They came very quickly. They were continuously speaking to me and telling me that I was going to be fine. But at the time when I was transferred to the operating table in the trauma centre, I saw the real expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses. At that time I got really scared. I could very easily see in their eyes that I might not survive that I will die for sure. I knew I had to act swiftly and take corrective action”.

Gerard in excitement asked, “Almond, so what did you do? Tell me Almond, what did you actually do?”

Almond said, “Well, standing just near to my head, a very big nurse who was shouting questions at me, she suddenly asked if I am allergic to anything. Yes, I relied quickly and paused. The doctors and nurses waited for my reply…at that time I took deep breath remember my inner self and belief and yelled BULLETS. All doctors and Nurses actually laughed. Over their laughter, I told them, “I have chosen to live. Please operate me as if I am alive, not dead”. Gerard had tears in his eyes and couldn’t utter any words. He realized and understood that positive attitude does wonders not only in professional life but also at every moment of personal life too.

Almond lived, of course because of the magnificent skills of the doctors, but also due to his amazingly positive attitude towards life. This story is a very tiny attempt to guide you to understand and learn from Almond that every moment we have choices to live fully. Attitude after all is everything and positive attitude is the choice that always remains within you.

There are days when we are thinking about ourselves more than the other days. May be today is that day?

The fundamental of divine design can be witnessed at starting of the day with the rise of the golden sun with birds chirping, coming out of the straw made homes, flying and enjoying the freedom of life. This is the true activity of a “DAY”.

Slowly and gradually the rays of the sun are less felt on the skin and eventually the darkness of night covers the golden sun with its blanket. In this darkness, Moon rises and reflects the light of the sun for us to lie down under the monstrous sky, scattered stars and our own deep self to meditate. This is the true activity of “NIGHT”.

We are born to move. We are constantly in the state of motion. Even when we are in deep sleep, we are not at peace, our thoughts are continuously flowing and our physical body is constantly trying to figure out the best position to continue sleeping without the break in the dream that we might be living at that moment.

But there are times when we play hide and seek and mix n match the separate aspects of light and darkness. We tend to think at night, about the peace that we feel and realize the storage of our intellectual abilities due to the calmness of night. This make us believe that night is the best working environment that one can create for him/herself, thereby starting the Day activity at night and continue to perform night activity in Day. For some time, we feel energetic and happy and witness the difference within ourselves but after certain time period the same joy, enthusiasm and charisma to perform at great heights starts to get dull, diminish. At that point we start thinking about our bored work culture and non-exciting, non-happening life. And we see nothing but darkness ahead.

We have broken the circle by mixing the activities that we were suppose to perform in the Day and the Night time and hence, whatever accumulation of positivity from Day we had from our early life gets exhausted as we did not perform the tasks that we were supposed to at the right time and similarly, we lose the soothing realization about our intellectual powerhouse as we work in other direction at Night.

We create a life for ourselves that initially made us materialistic happy but at the same time started to drain our storage vault of all the savings that we did earlier. Continuation of such practices leads us to encounter physical ailments such as; Migraine, Body aches, memory loss, weak eye sight, hair loss, back problem, weak joints, lethargic, laziness, tiredness, loss of speech, scattered thoughts, hatred, jealousy, anger, visible change in attitude, compelling behavior. There can be thousand more ailments that can be named but that’s not the point. Everyone knows this for fact still we continuously create such environment in our lives.

At the end of the day we even lose the precious materialistic happiness for which we created this environment. At this point, we get a shock of our lives and helpless we stand witnessing the smallest of joyful things slipping away from our hands like grains of sand. We witness in horror the change in ourselves that we never thought can be seen within us.

We helplessly look ahead for light which can lead us to the right direction, pull us out of this materialistic misery but the only thing that lingers in our head is the past. Upon reflecting back we try to find out the source of such horrific present that we are experiencing, witnessing but even that we are unable to do. Why? Because we don’t even know the game of mix n match that we once played, even exist. Only when we introspect our actions, we have the possibility of finding out the real cause, the source, the starting point of the path that lead us to this present.

At this point also, we have a choice as we always had. At all times, we made choices either consciously or unconsciously but today, there is only time to consciously decide the further course of action, the change in path if you think is necessary. It will surely pain like nothing you have imagined, if you choose to work towards re-establishing the right activity at the right time and tear the blanket under which we are performing current activities. You will also have a choice to let go of everything and just live with whatever you have been left with and continue living in the surrounding of existing sufferings.

But you always a choice at every moment to decide to either move forward or to stay where you are for which you have to ask the right question to your own self…right now. Choice is and will always be yours.

We go through different phases in life. The phases where thoughts change, realizations occur and we take decisions or work on our dreams are the ones which pave our way to happiness. In other words, we live for the dream which outshines us. What’s happiness to you??? For me it’s the delight of feeling contentment and peace flowing through my heart and mind.

Every dream is special, because we as individual specialize in or attain specialization with course of fulfilling the dream. However, the sustainability and durability of dreams is what people around you will always raise questions about…isn’t it? I would say, probably they are not able to differentiate between thoughts and dreams. The essence of the dream is what matters and we would make it work, if that is actually our dream. Share your dreams and live them without fear as no other individual will think the same way you would.

Quantifying dreams is another common mistake we commit in initial phase itself which kills the dream. Big or small doesn’t matter, what matters is what is your objective to achieve the dream. I agree we need to earn a living but my dear even if the path is filled with roses the probability of having a few thorns cannot be ignored. Believe me once you start walking towards your own happiness things will fall in place on their own….don’t let the problems pull you down , face them , overcome them. You wouldn’t even come to know when the thunder passed by and you would be sailing smooth ….

That’s the moment when you would feel good to be lost in right direction because the gains will shine equally with in you same as they would on your bank account.